More turnover at top of Wells Fargo brokerage group
Last year, two former heads of Wells Fargo Advisors left the firm. The exodus of senior wealth management executives with decades of experience at Wells Fargo and its numerous predecessor firms continues, with John Peluso, the head of its brokerage clearing operations, First Clearing, retiring at the end of September.
A senior managing director, Peluso had been at the firm and its various predecessors for 35 years.
He is not alone. Warren Terry, managing director and head of the client relationship group branch infrastructure, had his final day at the firm last week, according to his BrokerCheck profile. Terry had worked at the firm since 2005.
And Rich Getzoff, head of the branch network since 2019, left the firm in June. He had worked at Wells Fargo and a predecessor, Prudential Securities, since 1998.
The changes at the top of Wells Fargo Advisors, with 12,000 financial advisors, and FiNet, appear to be in the same vein as last year. That‘s when David Kowach, who headed Wells Fargo Advisors until 2019, and Jim Hays, who replaced Kowach, both said they were retiring.
Wells Fargo Advisors has seen thousands of financial advisors leave the firm to join competitors or retire since 2016. That’s when the parent bank, Wells Fargo & Co., first reported a wave of credit card and bank scandals that harmed the bank’s reputation and led to difficult conversations with some financial advisors’ clients.
In 2019, the bank hired Charlie Scharf, former CEO of Bank of New York Mellon Corp., to be its president and CEO.
“FiNet is changing up management on Peluso’s retirement announcement to focus on the RIA channel more aggressively,” said one well-placed industry source, who spoke confidentially to InvestmentNews about the changes
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